Hands of a Hero foundation is a registered non-profit organization founded by Priscilla Birago in November 2009, along with her close friends Diana Sarpong and Matilda Donkor . This organization has been a long time dream of theirs when growing up together. Their vision was to help disadvantaged children in Africa but had little knowledge of how to start an organization.

In December 2010, the founders decided to take their first step to fulfill their vision by setting up an arrangement to travel to Ghana for the hope of impacting the lives of children through volunteering. However, because of unforeseen circumstances, Diana was the only person who was permitted to visit Ghana. During her time there, she discovered that many children in Ghana are living in poverty and do not have the same opportunities as she did growing up in Canada.

Upon her arrival she shared her observations with the others, which led to a discussion about an article they read called “Abolish Orphanages”. While reading the article, the founders were appalled by the malnutrition, abuse and the criminal activities taking place within orphanages. They discovered that many of these children in the orphanages were not orphans, but rather disadvantaged children whose parents were unable to pay their educational expenses.

This brought forth a unique break through to enhance their dream to create an organization in both Canada and Ghana that concentrated on youth in Canada and helped unfortunate children in Africa, particularly Ghana.

In 2012, the vision of the organization expanded to create a platform to bring awareness about the issue of poverty through a brilliant initiative called Fashion Against Poverty (FAP). Over the years, FAP has been used as a platform to color and ignite the lives of children and youth in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and the less fortunate children in Ghana.

This annual event has enabled the team to utilize fashion as a podium to stand against poverty in a vibrant and philanthropic environment to create awareness, educate, and raise funds to contribute to Hands of a Hero Foundation’s projects and programs. FAP also helps showcase and shine the light upon up and coming brilliant/talented designers, artists and local entrepreneurs within the Canada.

The vision for our organization does not stop here, we hope to create more initiatives, bring change in the world and influence children and youth across the world to become a positive change in their community.